30. Crespo Series

Music in time of war

This is the final performance by Calidore Quartet in this year’s Festival. Both Mozart and Korngold were child prodigies, creating astounding works at ridiculously young ages. Here we find them at the other end of their lives where writing masterworks was both expected and given. Mozart’s B flat quartet was part of a commission for six quartets that he promised to the cello-playing King Frederick of Prussia, thus its nickname. He only finished three of the quartets and never fulfilled the complete commission. However the King did leave his mark on the quartets as Mozart wrote especially notable parts for the cello. Korngold wrote his third and last quartet in 1944. He had been in enforced exile in Hollywood since the Nazis took over Austria in 1938. He dedicated the quartet to his old friend and Hollywood neighbour the famous conductor Bruno Walter, another refugee from the Nazis. This quartet is famous for its inclusion of some of the film themes he had written while in Hollywood, thus inviting (and receiving) unjust critical retribution.